Destiny: The Taken KingReview

It was 4 a.m., and though my Fireteam should have stepped away from Destiny: The Taken King's fantastic endgame raid hours ago, the six-player assault kept us awake to try and stomp our way to the final boss. But a challenging co-op gauntlet isn't the only thing fueling our lust for better loot drops and great shooting – there are plenty of changes, big and small, that make Destiny a much better game. The short-but-sweet campaign, menacing Taken enemies, clever bosses, and rewarding loot system, combined with another inventive raid, have made these late-night play sessions a regular thing. This expansion is the shot in the arm that Destiny needed.

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The campaign is a fun highlight, with a succinct six-hour story that kept me intrigued and invested with clever level designs, gorgeous cinematic cutscenes, and funny dialogue. Character Cayde-6 steals the show with witty one-liners, delivered with enthusiasm by actor Nathan Fillion. Major character that were underdeveloped in prior expansions are featured a more prominently. The Taken King ditches the barely-there plot of previous installments in a favor a story with a clear villain and a role for us in the conflict. I missed the storytelling when it faded back into the background again once I’d wrapped up campaign, but the volume of things to afterward do kept me too busy to complain.

A revamped UI makes it easy to track tasks, and completing the many quests lines never felt like busywork because of the intelligently designed Taken enemies and boss monsters. Destiny is a game where shooting is a constant action, but each Taken brings a distinct attack style that contributes to the already excellent combat sandbox. Corrupted Psions split into copies; Taken Captains will flush you out of cover and temporarily blind you; Corrupted Goblins make other Taken temporarily invincible via an energy tether. New and different tactics like these kept me on the edge of my seat, and I continued to learn how they fight for hours after the campaign ended.

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Bosses benefit from this new creative direction as well. I’d never seen anything like the Sunless Cell's tense final encounter, where you're trapped in a dimly lit arena with a deadly Darkblade as he teleports around the room to chop up your squad with a heavy axe. A few bosses that show up in the Court of Oryx are hit and miss – like Loaar, a Hive Wizard that gets momentarily fatigued each time he teleports, turning him into easy target practice – but overall, The Taken King’s bosses are memorable, complex, and nothing like the big bullet sponges we fought last year.

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...there are plenty of changes, big and small, that make Destiny a much better game.

To combat them, The Taken King expands on Guardians’ abilities by introducing a third subclass option that complements each Guardian’s existing abilities and helps round out the character classes. The new Nightstalker special ability allows Hunters to tether a group of enemies and restrict their movements so the rest of a party can line up damaging precision shots and increase their DPS. This support-style ability is a first for the class and a great addition to their ability to be team players, since Hunters have until now never benefited anyone else in the Fireteam.

Titans and Warlocks get their own impressive abilities: Sunbreaker Titans can toss a special mid-range Hammer to unleash a fierce barrage of strikes, and the Warlock’s Stormcaller ability blasts out a powerful discharge that’s great if you need to trim down a mob of enemies. The different combinations of abilities keep Destiny’s combat highly mobile and powerful, setting up opportunities to unleash more attacks quickly and higher DPS against enemies or bosses.

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When the fights are over, we’re showered with lots of useful rewards, which fixes one of my biggest complaints about Destiny’s initially stingy loot system. It’s a generous approach that will prepare you for endgame activities like the raid or the Nightfall Strike. I also like how I don't have to immediately give up on high-level weapons or gear because another item has better stats - the infusion system lets you dismantle new items to reinforce your favorite items and keep them useful much longer. Destiny pulls the plug on upgrading your hard-earned weapons and armor, but the rate loot drops is much improved. I constantly had interesting item choices without feeling overwhelmed.

The Taken King is fun a solo game, but it's a much better co-operative one that rewards you for you working with friends or strangers. In some cases, you'll need all the help you can get, like when you’re deep in the Dreadnaught warship. This labyrinth vessel that hovers near Saturn is a major location, where crowd-sourced knowledge of how to decipher hidden mechanisms to unlock chests and defeat bosses is essential.

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The endgame raid, King's Fall, requires teaming up with five friends to play, which highlights Destiny’s ongoing lack of matchmaking tools. But once you organize, it’s the single best piece of The Taken King expansion. It trumps Destiny’s prior raids, Vault of Glass and Crota’s End, handily in terms of open space and tightly tuned teamwork, but the real surprise for me was the way it uses impressive scale, unique puzzles, and difficult bosses to craft a one-of-a-kind multiplayer shooter experience that’s best had without spoilers.

The Verdict

Destiny: The Taken King is an awesome upgrade that's addressed most of my biggest problems with Destiny over the past year. The rewarding loot system, fun enemies, new subclasses, and many quests have kept me busy long after the strong story missions ended. The crown jewel is King's Fall, a demanding high-level activity that, despite the strict six-person requirement, will keep me playing into the late hours of the night.